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International Telecommunication Union
Telecommunication Standardization Policy DivisionITU Telecommunication Standardization Sector
Biometrics and Standards
ITU-T Technology Watch ReportDecember 2009
Biometric recognition can be described as automated methods to accurately recog-nize individuals based on distinguishing physiological and/or behavioral traits. Thereport spotlights biometric recognition as a key form of authentication, one which isincreasingly used in a wide range of applications made possible by advanced pat-tern recognition algorithms applied through powerful ICT.
 
 
ITU-T Technology Watch Reports
are intended to provide an up-to-date assessment of promising new technologies in a format that is accessible to non-specialists, with a view to:
•
 
Identifying candidate technologies for standardization work within ITU.
•
 
Assessing their implications for the ITU Membership, especially developing countries.Previous Reports in the series include:#1 Intelligent Transport System and CALM  #2 Telepresence: High-Performance Video-Conferencing  #3 ICTs and Climate Change  #4 Ubiquitous Sensor Networks  #5 Remote Collaboration Tools  #6 Technical Aspects of Lawful Interception  #7 NGNs and Energy Efficiency  #8 Intelligent Transport Systems  #9 Distributed Computing: Clouds and Grids  #10 Future Internet  #11 ICTs and Food Security 
Acknowledgements
This report was prepared by Martin Adolph. It has benefitted from the comments and adviceprovided by Rapporteurs of ITU-T Study Group 17, Question 9 on Telebiometrics.The opinions expressed in this report are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflectthe views of the International Telecommunication Union or its membership.This report, along with other Technology Watch Reports can be found atwww.itu.int/ITU-T/techwatch. Please send your comments to tsbtechwatch@itu.int or join the Technology Watch Corre- spondence Group, which provides a platform to share views, ideas and requirements onnew/emerging technologies and to comment on the Reports.The Technology Watch function is managed by the ITU-T Standardization Policy Division.
 
ITU 2009
 
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, by any means whatsoever, without theprior written permission of ITU.
 
 
ITU-T Technology Watch Reports
 
Biometrics and Standards (December 2009)1 
Figure 1: Overview of some biometrics
(1)
 
Fingerprint (2)
 
Iris (3)
 
DNA (4)
 
Keystroke pattern
Images uploaded to Flickr by (1) Fazen,(2) Sarah Cartwright,(3) ynse,(4) Ben Harris-Roxas. 
Biometrics and Standards
 
I. Introduction
As modern society increasingly depends on systems to provide secure environments and ser-vices to people, it becomes paramount to ensure the security of a system through means toidentify the validity of an individual requesting access to it. This is usually established by ex-tracting some form of information from the individual to check against information held by thesystem about valid users.This ITU-T Technology Watch Report spotlights biometric recognition as a key form of authen-tication, one which is increasingly used in a wide range of applications made possible by ad-vanced pattern recognition algorithms applied through powerful information and communica-tion technologies (ICT).Biometric recognition can be described as automated methods to accurately recognize individ-uals based on distinguishing physiological and/or behavioral traits. It is a subset of the broaderfield of the science of human identification. Technologies used in biometrics include recognitionof fingerprints, faces, vein patterns, irises, voices and keystroke patterns (See Figure 1). Inthe subfield of telebiometrics, these recognition methods are applied to telecommunications.In a non-automated way and on a smaller scale, parts of the human body and aspects of hu-man behavior have been used ever since the dawn of mankind as a means of interpersonalrecognition and authentication. For example, face recognition has been used for a long time in(non-automated) security and access applications, e.g., as a method to verify that the ownerof a passport and the person showing the passport are the same, by comparing the person’sface and the passport photo.The Digital Revolution added ICT as a means to fulfill recognition and authentication processes,often through PCs and computerized telecommunication devices, such as cash dispensers. Us-ers authenticate themselves to the machine by entering a secret knowledge-based authentica-tor, such as a PIN or passphrase, or by the possession of a token, like a bank card or key, andsometimes authentication requires a combination of knowledge and possession.The 1960s also saw the first automated biometric recognition applications. However, the bio-metric industry did not take off at that time, due to high cost, low recognition accuracy and thelack of standards and testing benchmarks with which the different approaches could be com-pared and quality ensured.To further the use of biometric systems, issues of security and privacy will need to be carefullyaddressed, as well as the high levels of expectation in accuracy, reliability, performance, adap-tability, and cost of biometric technologies for a wide variety of applications.
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